Carjackers target school run

School-run mothers and nannies are being targeted by violent robbers as London's epidemic of carjacking continues to spread.

Detectives are examining the theory that carjackers are increasingly preying on women drivers of expensive vehicles as they drop off or collect their children from school or nursery because they are usually alone and vulnerable and often distracted.

Such women have long been prime targets for handbag or watch snatches through unlocked doors or open windows but in recent weeks it is the cars themselves which are being stolen, often violently.

One of the most alarming cases involves the nanny of Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman, who was violently attacked as she arrived at the family home in Queens Park after picking up Ms Shulman's sixyearold son, Sam. The boy, who has been traumatised by what happened, cowered in their doorway as his nanny, Amanda Rogers, was ambushed by a man who clamped his hand over her mouth.

Slightly-built Ms Rogers, 24, said: "This big hand came across my face. And then he yanked my head back and I couldn't see Sam, I couldn't see what was happening. I was struggling, but judging from the bruises on my knees and elbows he must have forced me to the pavement. I still didn't know what he wanted. I thought he was going to rape me in front of the child in the middle of the road.

"Then he said, 'Give me the keys, give me the keys'. I dropped everything - a magazine, a book, my handbag - but he only grabbed the keys. And then he was gone, in the car."

The stolen car, a three-year-old VW Golf, was recovered in Maida Vale 11 days later but that only served to increase Sam's terror at what he had seen. Ms Shulman said: "He has become extremely nervous. He is not sleeping properly and when the police rang to say they had found the car, he became hysterical. He thought that if the car came back, then so would the man."

Ms Shulman, who in an earlier incident had her handbag snatched at a traffic light, added her voice to calls for urgent action, saying that she now felt safer on the streets of New York than London.

She said: "Everywhere you look there are big yellow signs appealing for witnesses to murders and muggings." Ms Shulman said that since the attack she had considered buying pepper sprays and rape alarms, or even moving to a more salubrious area of London, but decided not to because "the more secure you make yourself, the more you become like a frightened prisoner".

Other recent cases involving women being targeted by carjackers as they go to or return from picking up children include the attack on company director Gloria Hamilton, 41, who is in hospital following an attack in Charlton last Friday.

She was on her way to collect her three children from Greenwich when she was deliberately bumped. When she got out to speak to the driver she was punched unconscious by carjackers who then drove off in her £50,000 Mercedes.

Another case involved the seven-year-old son of former Arsenal and England footballer Ian Wright, who was physically dragged from the family's £70,000 Porsche. Deborah Wright, 33, and her son Stacey were at a Texaco filling station forecourt in Purley on their way home and the boy was briefly left alone as his mother went to pay for petrol.

As she returned to the car moments later she saw the carjackers tugging her terrified son out of the car, getting in themselves and then racing away.

Police later found the blue Porsche 911 convertible nearby after activating the car's hi-tech tracking system.